The Three advert song is Dancing with Myself, in the version recorded by the American band The Donnas. The girl on the ice is Katarina Suemnig, an 11-year-old figure skater from Plymouth, Minnesota, and yes, that really is an inflatable chicken costume. The advert launched on 14 August as the first work for Three’s new brand platform, Let Fun In.
A nervous young skater waits among unimpressed rivals at a competition. She glides out as the music starts, presses a button on her belt, and her costume inflates into a chicken jockey, a rider perched on a giant chicken. She lands a soaring jump, the crowd gasps, and she finishes on jazz hands to a standing ovation.
It is based on something that actually happened. Katarina’s original routine at a national competition passed 25 million views on TikTok last year, and the agency went and cast her rather than imitate her. The choreography for the advert was created by Daniel Linden, a British coach and former international ice dancer.
Dancing with Myself was first released in 1980 by Gen X, the punk band fronted by Billy Idol, who then had a hit with it as a solo artist. The Donnas’ cover is the brasher, faster take, and it suits a film about a child who has decided not to care what the judges think.
Wonderhood Studios created the campaign, with Lucy Forbes directing through Smuggler and Carat handling media, according to Three’s own announcement. It is running across ITV, cinema, streaming services and social, with a takeover of the tunnel at Oxford Circus station and wrapped buses. Executive creative director Jack Croft called Katarina “the perfect embodiment of letting fun in”.
This is the first platform since Three merged with Vodafone, and chief brand officer Maria Koutsoudakis has pitched it as a wake-up call from our “scrolling slumber”. That is a bold line for a company that sells data, but it is on familiar ground. Three made its name in 2013 with a moonwalking Shetland pony and the line about silly stuff mattering, which we reviewed in Dance Pony Dance.
Let Fun In is the same idea in a new costume, and that is a compliment. Telecoms brands rarely own an emotion, and Three owned joy before it spent a decade talking about network coverage. With O2 now rethinking its own brand, the timing could hardly be better.
He plans, buys and reviews advertising for a living, and helps score campaigns on the site against the same five Crown Score criteria alongside other authors and contributors.
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